From: Kevin J. Bonham, sleepycat@eudoramail.com
Subject: more trolling: vh1 site
Date: 2/25/2002 7:56:20 AM
To: seance@lists.no-fi.com


Below is my rebuttal of C. Bottomley's VH-1 review of AENT, as posted to their message board.  For some obscure reason I felt compelled to post under the user name "carniphage" - one of my favourite obscure words, if anyone knows where I got it from I'll be impressed.

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I was pleased to see that the VH-1 board invites comments with the message "Are our critics completely correct or completely nuts?" because, without wishing to question anyone's sanity, C. Bottomley's review of the Church's "After Everything Now This" just simply wasn't very good.

For instance:

(1) Bottomley claims most Australian bands sound like U2.  I live in Australia, and he obviously hasn't heard many Australian bands.

(2) Bottomley accuses the Church of wanting to be U2.  I don't mind U2 at all, but The Church are a totally different band - far more complex, more lyrical, more ambitious, less political, less anthemic. They have been around for about as long and were a successful band first.  About all the two have in common is that they are both rock bands that are not blatant sellouts.

(3) Bottomley claims that the Church's song Radiance "creates a keen portrait of an incestuous community."  Maybe in his head it does, but anyone who has paid much attention to history and current events would know that the song is actually inspired by the claimed sighting of the Virgin Mary before a group of children in the town of Fatima, Portugal - a supposed event made famous by the supposed prophecies supposedly made by the supposed Virgin.  

(4) Bottomley also claims that the "grand musical release" never arrives.  This is not as serious as the above errors (at least he's not getting his facts completely wrong or flinging unsubstantiated insults) but why not find out for yourself?  Go to a store which carries "After Everything Now This" and ask them to let you hear the song "Chromium" on headphones.  It rocks my world far more than anything I've heard out of U2 for a while.  

Critics who don't make a decent effort to understand the music they review do the whole of music a real disservice.  Cut out the middleman and look for the music you like yourself.
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Cheers, Kevin.
---
Self-Appointed President, Oxydental Fan Club




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